It's hard being a criminal or an asylum seeker in Europe these days. Not that I know from experience, but the Council of Europe's latest reports on the British and French prison systems and police forces leave little to the imagination. Alvaro Gil-Robles, the European Commissioner for Human Rights has fiercely condemned living conditions in overcrowded French and British prisons in an interview published in the daily newspaper Libération'.
He said that the premises for holding foreigners in Paris were the worst he had seen anywhere, except in the ex-Soviet republic country of Moldavia. He was also critical of the holding cells at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport. Stating that the cells were "assez digne", he questioned why detainees had only five days to complete asylum applications in French, a language many did not speak. He found totally unacceptable' the fact that asylum applicants needing an interpreter must pay for it themselves and often there are none available.
Britains prison system too is in an advanced state of decay and chaos. Overcrowded and unhygienic conditions mean that prisoners are dehumanised and humiliated on a daily basis, including regular bullying by demoralised and sometimes racist staff.
After reading these reports, it finally hit me: police instructors from various NATO member states are now training the new Iraqi and Afghan police forces. No wonder living conditions in prisons there are so similar to those in western jails!
All joking aside, I sometimes wonder what we're doing. We try to convince the world that our society should serve as an example, that our way of life is far superior to 'theirs' in that we respect one another. I believe it was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who wrote that one can measure a society by its prisoners. I think if he were alive today, Solzhenitsyn would take it even one step further.
Europe's leaders have condemned the violence that erupted over the Danish cartoons - and not a moment too soon!! I mean, it was about freakin' time they said something, anything! They have also expressed their solidarity with Denmark and all the EU member states which are targeted by the boycott. No talk of countermeasures, though. They're still afraid of their own Muslim population may react.
So Solana has started a dialogue with the Secretary General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, who has compared the controversial cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad to the September 2001 attacks. Meeting with Europe's foreign policy chief to discuss a ban on religious defamation, the OIC leader said, "Unfortunately, people in the Muslim world feel that this is a new 9/11 against themselves. In Europe, unfortunately, Muslims have taken the place of Jews during World War II." And while the Arab News reports that the secretary general claims his group "deplores" violent acts of protesters, he says, "we have to defend the rights of the Muslim Ummah for its holy values."
Now, I know that there's a general feeling of mistrust among Europeans against all foreigners, not just against Muslims. Anyone who dresses differently than we do, who doesn't fully master our language or who's not white, is looked down on, even feared. If we would just take the trouble to get to know these people, we would soon realise that they are in fact not that different from us and our society would be a better place to live in.
However, if people come to a European country hoping to find a better life they should show some respect for our democratic principles, e.g. freedom of speech. After all, these freedoms are the foundation of our society, our holy values.
Let's see, what happened during the weekend? Ah yes, Dick Cheney shot a 78-year-old man. The vice-president's spin doctors are calling the incident a case of mistaken identity. Apparently, Cheney thought he was aiming at a quail.
Mistaken identity, my foot! I happen to know from a reliable eyewitness that America's No 2 (or rather No 1) was participating in a good old Southern manhunt!
Surprised? Well, don't forget who makes up the Bush administration: a bunch of Kompassionate Konservative Killers!!
Can you picture it? Every weekend, Rove, W, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of that lot go on a manhunting party. Equipped with the latest laser-scope elephant guns, they track their prey - usually provided by the NSA. Old homeless people, tortured prisoners from Guantanamo, sometimes even GOP dissidents (weakened by a couple of weeks of starvation, of course).
And so, to this day, this good old tradition, which started in Mississippi in 1866, is kept alive by the good ol' Dixie boys - "Be vewy vewy quiet, we're huntin' niggers".
No, I'm just kidding!! This 78-year-old probably just said something like: "Well Dick, in retrospect, don't you think going into Iraq may have been a mistake?"
